Race Against Myself
by CHAILYN
Summary: Sam's had a secret he's kept from Dean since he was thirteen. Picks up from Point of Know Return. Sam's been contemplating faith and salvation for a long time.
1. Chapter 1

**Race Against Myself **

**-1-**

--

_Note: Picks up from Point of No Return. Rampant references to Nirvana abound, and I own absolutely nothing that relates to such in the slightest. Supernatural also is not mine in the least. And I so can't help the angst-age. I'm on a Kurt obsession kick again. Every couple of years the manic depressive beast raises its ugly head and make me obsess wildly over __Kurt. The song _Even in His Youth_ does not belong to me and can be found on Nirvana's 1992 release Hormoaning. _

_This _was_ going to be a one shot but it just seemed to keep growing so _tentatively_ I'm going to say this is a three chapter fic._

--

_Even in his youth _

_He was nothing_

_Kept his body clean _

_Going nowhere_

_Daddy was ashamed _

_He was something_

_Disgrace the family name _

_The family name, he was something_

-Even in His Youth; Nirvana

--

It's been too long since they've seen Castiel.

Sam tries to talk to Dean about it, but he won't have it.

"He's fine." Dean practically growls at him the last time that Sam breaches the question, suggesting that maybe they should look for him. "Fine."

Right then. It doesn't make him stop worrying, but he doesn't ask anymore. Dean's just started looking at him, talking to him like a normal human being-like they're brothers again.

He's not going to throw the first punch.

Still though, a wrenching in his stomach tells him something's not right, and he worries about Cas.

And even though he's not saying anything, he knows, Dean's worried too.

--

Sam's had a secret that he's kept from Dean since he was thirteen.

For six months, right through his fourteenth birthday, they lived in New York City. It was the best six months of both of their lives. Dad was gone all the time. During the six months, he remembered seeing John often enough to count out on one hand. Dean found strip bars and he-he started the art of lying to teachers.

It started out as an accident.

School let out early for upperclassmen because someone started a fire in their building. He told Dean not to worry, home was only two city blocks away-he'd be fine.

He could tell Dean was relieved. He had plans to check out some strip joint, the Dan-De-Fine, in Long Island, and couldn't rightfully get bombed and have fun if he needed to be waiting around for his kid brother.

It seemed like it was pleading with him.

The brash white building towered over him as he walked home, making him look up from his cassette player and _Lithium_. He's been listening to Nirvana on repeat all year long-and he's pretty sure that Kurt Cobain is a genius.

Our Lady of Perpetual Hope.

He reads the sign and a bitter piece of him wants to laugh. Hope seems like a joke. There's no hope for him-just determination. A bitter determination to get the hell out.

Anyways, he goes in. he needs to blow some time anyways before Dean comes home, and maybe he can find something to write about for his history paper.

--

"Dean!" Sam's scream is more like a desperate plead as the bloody figure cracks against the hardwood with a blindingly bright flash and a sickening wet sort of clunk.

For the moment, he's not sure what he's seen because everything is blurry and surrounded by a fuzzy whiteness.

Dean's apparently deciphered the scream and figured out this was a trouble scream, not 'I found your itching powder in your bag' scream. Besides, it's been a long time since he's pranked his brother. The blinding flash of light that ricocheted into the bathroom wasn't exactly comforting either.

It was the nightmare of hell breaking loose in his shit ass motel room.

Whatever. Death can have him, if they're going down, at least it'll be together. He's done playing the never-fucking-ending revolving door with their souls. Fuck them.

"Dean! Help!"

Sam's eyes focus, and the blood drenched writhing lump on the floor clears to a figure he slowly recognizes.

--

He could scream his lungs out, and he didn't think anyone would notice.

Except, maybe, the old lady in the front lighting a candle. But then again, two to one she was too immersed in prayer or too deaf for it.

It was tempting, knowing he had the power to shatter the perfect-almost glowing-peace that seemed to settle around. He dropped into the first pew in the back and sat silently for a few minutes.

He didn't feel any different.

It seems like the old lady with her white hair and Italian features is miles away, but if he watches carefully he can see her lips moving. He wonders what she prays for.

_I just want to be saved._

Doesn't really matter. He probably doesn't believe anyways.

Casually, he turns the music down until Nirvana is only a dull buzzing in his ears. He looks around, and it's the windows that catch his eyes.

He's seen his fair share of catechism-Pastor Jim doesn't have much more faith in what John's teaching them then he does, so he knows who Jesus is, and he knows that you shouldn't sin or you go to hell, and that some people actually believe that angels are watching over them. People like Pastor Jim's wife with pictures and creepy ceramic dolls of angels littering their house.

He thinks he might, maybe, like to believe.

In all the windows, Jesus is crying. He doesn't really know why, but looking at the windows makes him sad.

He wonders, and thinks of Pastor Jim. If Jesus was real and if angels are…why didn't they save him?

If anyone deserved to be saved, it was probably Jesus.

--

Cas.

And he's bleeding to death in the Motel 6, home to pervert truck drivers and eight dollar hookers.

"Clean towels!" Dean barks the order to Sam, and both of them are reminded of John. "Get hot water."

Sam runs for them, wondering fleetingly if it's too late, and knowing that whatever happened-they're the catalyst for it. If Cas dies, another name on the list…

Because of Sam and Dean. Cause of death? Knowing the Winchester boys.

He's getting the water as hot as he can and he hears Dean swearing and rifling. But that's it. He doesn't hear anything else.

--

He comes back again and again.

Some days he forges notes from John, other days he feigns ill to the nurse, but he never goes home. He likes to go during school, because it's almost always nearly empty. He tried going at night but it was too full and he felt like an impostor. So he leaves after first period sometimes, and doesn't come back until the final bell will ring, always showing up next to the Impala right on time.

Dean, Dean who thinks he never misses anything, never seems to notice. It's exciting to him, knowing that he's doing something right under Dean's nose and his brother has no idea.

He's been there half a dozen times watching the comings and goings of the occasional older woman, swearing that more than often it's that same woman from the very first afternoon. He doesn't move from the back row, it seems like _his_ spot now.

It the windows that hold his attention still, the windows and the pictures on the wall. The more he studies them, the less he understands.

It's not the facts. He gets the facts-Jesus dies and other people, all the sinners can be forgiven. But why didn't anyone come forward to help him-except his mother. Why did they just watch it and do nothing. They could have, they could have done something

He gets up unwillingly. Getting back early is a must. He has a test that he can't excuse his way out of without getting caught.

An old woman surprises him when he turns around. He hadn't seen anyone standing there.

"Don't worry dear." the old lady doesn't look him in the eye, taking his hand and pressing something the size and shape of an index card into his palm.

His fingers curl around it almost automatically and he knows whatever it is he's crumpled it beyond repair. He thinks it's the same woman from that first afternoon, but he can't tell-he's only ever seen the back of her hair.

"Angels are watching over you."

She turns around and walks away from him, and he notes that she's different. This lady's hair is a greyish shade of blonde. She's scrawnier too.

The card is heavy in his hand; he straightens it out and sees a cheap looking coin pasted to the paper. It's the size of a quarter and engraved with a decidedly feminine looking angel-he'd thought angels were men…mostly. He slips it into his pocket, if anyone finds it; he can write it off as a fluke. Some person gave it to him. It's more the truth than not. As if anyone would, the only one who bothers to take the initiative to do laundry is him.

He faces the front of the church, his glance drawn in by the pulpit again, by the statue of Jesus pinned to the cross. It seems to macabre-but then again, death always was. No one died beautifully. Death was ugly.

The crumpled piece of paper gets shoved into his pocket too. It's getting late, and he doesn't want to be caught.

He's not ready to say good bye to this place yet. He's not ready to share it either.

It's his secret.

--

_Note: The 'Dan-De-Fine' is a creation of the movie Highway, I was just too lazy to make up my own strip bar and if you see the movie Highway...the Dan-De-fine is totally the place a teenage boy with a fake id would flock to. Hopefully the backa nd forth between past and present wasn't too confusing, and I promise that if it seemed a little bit...off...its all going to come together._


	2. Chapter 2

**Race Against Myself**

**-2-**

_Two months between updates isn't horribly long, right guys? *puppy dog eyes* Sorry about that, and I promise, the next chapters will be up much faster, and I hope y'all enjoy._

* * *

Sam's reminded of the first time he learned how to shoot.

John took him into the woods, a dark secluded sort of place that-he thought to himself-seemed like a prime place for the un-dead to congregate. He was nine though and knew better than to say something like that to his father.

It was a short lesson. After proving that he knew how to load the gun, unload it, and take the safety on and off with no mistakes, silently sulking that he was missing soccer practice at his new school because he had to come out in the woods and shoot at air.

_How incredibly stupid._

Dean's spread out in the grass behind them, and without watching he knows Dean is running through the lesson in his head and studying his every move-to make sure he's doing like he taught him. He wonders if Dean realizes that if he put half as much work into school as he did into hunting he'd be an honours student, and probably go to Harvard. He knows how smart Dean is, the teachers say so too; he just needs to apply himself.

They don't know that he is-just to other things.

John points his gun into the air and shoots, and Sam jumps in surprise as moments after the shot he hears a dull thud as something dead falls from the air. Embarrassed, he doesn't look at Dean or up at John.

He points-remembering all of Dean's lessons, this is his time to prove to Dean he was listening-and shoots.

Another bird falls from the sky and falls closer. No more than six feet away he sees the white bird-a seagull that looks deceptively like a dove, but its just small, too small to be dead just for a lesson-and the blood pooling over its chest and across its spread wings.

Red on white.

It always reminds him of death-for forever he hates those two colors together. It makes him sick to his stomach too.

He looks back at Dean-this is the first time he's ever killed anything.

_I killed it. I killed the bird._

"Dad," Dean jumps up from his seat on the ground, giving Sam a reassuring sort of look. The look that always reminds him, _it's okay, everything's going to be alright. _Dean gave him the same looks when he used to have nightmares. "Its getting sort of late, and Sam's done pretty good, you think we can head back now?"

"No one made you come, Dean." John tells him. "You didn't have to come if you didn't want to."

Sam ignores the rest of their argument, he doesn't need to listen to know how it goes.

The blood settles in between the feathers, little rivulets of red outlining the white.

He thinks of the bird when he looks at Cas.

They've never seen Cas' wings. Well, he never has. _Has _Dean?

He thinks the wings are an entity onto themselves. They quiver and flick at Dean's touch and he can only watch in horror. They don't look like feathers, but silk-like silk flowers.

Its like…like…

_When they were kids, he and Dean stayed in this backwoods motel for a whole summer, whose only talking point was a view of the Adirondacks from each awful room._

_He learned his first real lesson there, two of them. One, that Dean was right and that people are not, not under any sort of circumstances, inherently good, and that two, he hated it when his brother was right. _

Don't go outside, Sam_. He was in a combative mood with his brother, it had been too many weeks of listening to Dean be the boss, what was he supposed to do when Dean locked himself in the bathroom for a never-ending shower?_

_Of course he went outside. He wasn't trying to make trouble, though, really. He just wanted a little bit of sun. He took his book, went behind the hotel, and sat in the grassy knoll._

_He never had much of a chance to crack it open before he saw another boy, maybe just a little older than him, but not older than Dean, digging in the dirt. Sam saw this as an opportunity to do something he so rarely was given the opportunity to do-make a friend._

"_Hi-i-…" Sam's voice caught in his throat in a stutter as he walked up to the boy and saw, to his own nauseating horror that this boy wasn't digging a hole in the ground, but gauging hunks of flesh and fur off of a still twitching tawny rabbit._

_He pushed against the boy's shoulder violently, shoving him away from the rabbit. "Leave it alone! You're killing it!"_

_The boy picked himself up off of the ground and looked down at Sam who realized he'd sized the boy up too fast. He was a lot burlier than he or Dean was, but it didn't matter, he could fight._

"_Don' tell me what I kin or kin't do." He drawled in a heavy mountain accent, "A'int hurtin' a'one."_

_Sam decided not to look back at the rabbit, the evidence of just what this boy had, in fact, done wrong._

"_You're killing him." Sam stood in between him and the little rabbit. "I'm not just letting you, that's not right."_

_What he wanted to tell him was how sick and disgusting he was, but even now Dean had taught him the value of choosing his words with care. _

"_You dumb city shite." The boy stepped up real close to him, "You k'int tell me nothin' this my pap's land, and our place."_

"_I don't care." Sam took a step back to the rabbit. Their dad had been teaching him and Dean all sorts of important things about first aid, they could help it until he could get it somewhere safe. _

"_You gonna care when I make you and it a matchin' pair." He warned, "Now you mind your own business, and I ain't gotta-"_

_Sam took a swing at his face the way Dean taught him too, wincing as he pulled back his hand. God, that really did hurt._

_He turned back while the boy was on his back, and froze. He didn't know what to do, he wanted to help it and he was afraid to touch it and-that was when he felt a concrete blow to the back his head that felt like hitting the pavement._

"_You city boys aw'aways need learnin'." He threatened, as Sam fell to the ground, feeling a stab of fear when the boy got closer._

_Sam scrambled to his feet, unwilling to let this stupid boy, this bully win. He gulped though, when he saw the flash of silver from that blade._

"_We aw'aways need ta teach you boys…" He shakes his head with a threatening glint in his eyes._

"_Maybe," Sam takes a step back, thanking God, Jesus, and anyone listening for his brother as he sees Dean running toward them like a bat out of hell. "Maybe _you _need a lesson."_

_In a move that would have impressed John, Dean grabbed the boy with a chokehold, dropping him to the ground and pinning him there-immobile._

"_Sam," Dean said with the tone that reminded him of their dad, "What the hell is going on?"_

_Sam pulls the knife from the kids' hand, and for a second, wonders how he'd feel with a taste of his own medicine. The thought makes him sick, but he thinks the boy would deserve it._

_That boy is struggling against Dean's grip, but they both know he isn't going anywhere. He may be bigger, but he isn't the stronger one by a long shot._

_Sam gestures to the rabbit, and sees that it isn't…it's not even twitching anymore. Not even its nose. Nothing. No…he thinks, blinking back the tears that he refuses to cry, no it can't be dead._

_He walks away from them both and sits down by it, carefully touching its head, then petting its nose._

_Sam looks back to Dean, still clenching the knife in his hand. "Dean," he bites his lip, swallowing over the lump in his throat, "It's dead."_

"_Come here, Sam." Dean holds his hand out. _

_Sam knows what he means, and hands the bloody knife over._

"_Go inside." Dean tells him, no arguments in his tone. "Now."_

_He doesn't argue, and he never asks, ever. All he knows is that anytime he and Dean came outside for the rest of the summer, that boy would run back inside the main building._

_Sam decided then that he didn't care as long as the boy wasn't going to hurt any other animals._

He doesn't know why he think of the rabbit when he looks at Cas.

Except that's what it looks like. Like the rabbit. Like something was taken to his wings tearing, burning, ripping, gauging, bleeding them until they looked rusted over with blood.

He doesn't know how Dean can make this better, how either of them can.


End file.
